The Yahoo Litany of Woes

I know Yahoo ($YHOO) is supposed to be “Yahoo!” but frankly, there is so little excitement at this company that the exclamation point needs to be confiscated.

Kara Swisher at All Things D has a good primer on the company’s not insubstantial litany of woes heading into it’s earnings report next week.  She seems to agree with my take on the company – non-core Asian assets are great, but nothing doing at Corporate.

But, it did not stop Morgan Stanley from downgrading Yahoo shares on Monday and cutting its revenue and earnings estimates.

The reason? “Deteriorating fundamentals” and a belief that “users will increasingly consume media/content on Facebook vs. Yahoo!”

You think? (As Yahoo has found, it appears that the kids love to social network!)

Thus, despite a healthy valuation for those Asian assets in the Alibaba Group and Yahoo! Japan and some speculation about the sale of them–the lack of any revenue growth in Yahoo’s core U.S. market is still the big drag on the Silicon Valley icon.

Because of that, there has also been increased short seller activity recently, which means all eyes will be on Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings release next Tuesday, Jan. 25.

Yahoo is far from hopeless, but the story here is all about the value of the assets.  Any strategic plan from the company will be meaningless compared to a strategic plan for realizing the underlying value of the company’s various stakes and properties.  We’ll see if management has come around to this inevitability yet.

Source:

Yahoo Shares Feel Pressure Ahead of Next Week’s Earnings (All Things D)